Caribou Island: A Novel

by David Vann

That sounds like a lot.

  It’s not.

  Could you have done more if you had help?

  Mark gave him a squinty look.

  Okay, Carl said. That was pretty obvious, I guess. I’m broke and I need a job. Any chance of joining you on the boat?

  Mark patted Carl on the shoulder, which made him feel real big. Sorry, he said. It’s impossible to get on a boat. You have to live here and know everyone and be around every summer. You have to have experience. There’s a line of guys trying to get on. And it’s the end of the season anyway.

  Okay, Carl said. That makes sense. But he felt disappointed. No way in. He stared at the skinny trees, dwarfing out near the lake. They got shorter and shorter the closer they were to the water. A forest for the little people, like Carl himself. I’m a wee man, he said to Mark, using his fake Irish accent.

  Hey, Mark said. Go easy, man. You can find something, just not on a boat.

  I have to find something now, unfortunately. I have less than five dollars at this point. I maybe should have set something up earlier.

  Yeah, Mark laughed. Maybe. But hey, I can probably get you a job at the cannery.

  Really?

  Yeah. Eight bucks an hour, not a lot, but you don’t need any experience. You can start at the wash table, just pulling out membranes and getting the last bits of blood. Takes five minutes to learn.

  Thanks, Mark. That’d be perfect.

  Let’s celebrate with a bowl.

  Carl was going to say no, as he always did, but then he thought what the hell. Marijuana wasn’t going to kill him. Okay, he said.

  My man, Mark said, and he packed a bowl and got it lit, small puffs. Then he took a long drag, held it in, and passed the pipe to Carl.

  Carl didn’t like the smell, or the smoke, and he hated to break his record. He’d never tried anything, not even a cigarette or an alcoholic drink. A point of pride, and it would be over now. But what the hell. He sucked in the hot smoke, acrid and constricting, and coughed, his breath gone short.

  Mark was laughing, and Karen came over to laugh, too.

  Popped his cherry, Mark told her. Right here, in our humble abode.

  Karen took a hit then floated away back to the kitchen.

  Carl waited for a feeling, a different perception, anything. He was hoping for visions, maybe the walls dissolving. But nothing happened. Mark passed him the bowl and he sucked in again, held it like Mark told him, then exhaled and coughed again.

  Is it good? Mark asked.

  I don’t feel anything, Carl said.

  Nothing? Mark asked.

  Nothing.

  Try another hit.

  So Carl tried again, but really there was no effect other than a low-grade headache at the back of his neck and a foul taste in his mouth, a tightness in his lungs.

  Try again, Mark said, so Carl tried a fourth hit, but then he gave up.

  Sometimes nothing happens your first time, Mark said.

  Carl wasn’t sure there’d be a second time. It was all disappointing. Monique is fucking Jim, he told Mark. And he looked over to the kitchen, to Karen, who was looking at him now. I saw them do it in the living room when we stayed over there, and she’s been disappearing a lot.

  Mark was packing another bowl.

  Rhoda’s Jim? Karen asked.

  Yeah, the dentist.

  Mark lit up and took a long hit, then passed the bowl to Carl.

  No thanks, Carl said. That’s enough for now.

  Mark shrugged and held the bowl up in the air for Karen to come over. She took a drag and handed it back.

  So that was it, the big revelation, the much-anticipated moment. Carl’s secret information hitting the world like a meteor.

  Dinner’s ready, Karen said.

  Milky with silt, and calm. You could imagine it was only ankle-deep. As Gary cut the engine and they glided toward shore, Irene could hear seagulls on a rocky perch farther up the lake. The smallest of the islands, exposed rock covered white in guano. No wind today, sunny and still, the last good weather of summer. Next week, the first of the fall storms forecast.

  Irene looked over the side to see blue-gray stones emerge below the hull. The milky water somehow clear in close, a looking glass, magnifying the stones, bringing them closer. It seemed they should already be touching. The boat bumped, finally, its bottom scraping, and Irene hoisted her backpack, climbed carefully over the side, rubber boot sucking close to her ankle and shin in the water. Slippery. In her backpack, a tent and sleeping bag, pots and pans, clothing. Gary carrying a Coleman stove, another tent. Setting up camp so they could work longer days. From when they rose each morning to when they went to sleep, they would work on the cabin.

  Irene careful over the slick stones, a few steps onto shore, more stones but dry and gray, small tufts of grass, miniature freshwater tidal pools of algae and mosquitoes, a cloud of them around her now, going for her knuckles and wrists, any place of bone and blood close to the surface. A narrow band of grass and rock along the shore, then the taller grass and wildflowers no longer in bloom. Most likely there was purple iris, prickly rose, shy maiden, pink twin flower, pyrola, others yellow and white she couldn’t yet name. Deadfall and ruts all through here, Irene hoping not to trip under the weight of the pack.

  The alder thicket a third band up from shore, bright green in the sun, all the earth green. The growth thick in here, cobwebs lacing the air. Irene tried to keep her steps light, to avoid any jarring. Her husband behind her, the sound of his faster steps, snapping of small branches.

  Perfect day for setting up camp, he said as he passed, and she didn’t reply. She kept her head down, red fireweed in a large patch, the tops already bloomed. A sign of fall coming, the beginning of the end. Six weeks until snow when the tops bloomed, and they had opened a while ago, though she had forgotten to notice exactly when. After enough years here, you could begin to fear that flower, so it was odd she hadn’t noticed.

  Irene passed through low alder to the edge of the larger forest, where their cabin tottered too far inward on one side, too far outward on another. The entire thing ready to topple. They’d brought a load of two-by-fours, to set up braces.

  Irene walked back to the boat, passing Gary who grinned and jigged his eyebrows. Good eats, he said, carrying a plastic tub of food.

  Irene wanted to respond, wanted to make this easier. But she couldn’t. Off medication, every edge was sharp. She had to move carefully, had to avoid speaking or facial expressions.

  She grabbed half a dozen two-by-fours from the boat, stepped slowly up through tufts and ruts, set the wood down and returned for another load. Nothing was wrong, so she needed to just wait for the pain to go away.

  What a beautiful spot, Gary said. I love this place.

  It is beautiful, she said, wincing. But Gary was all movement, didn’t see. He dropped off a cooler and spun around quick for the next load.

  Tools and supplies, enough food for two weeks, a toilet seat for an outhouse, more nails and a window and door, two-by-fours and a come-along for pulling the walls into shape: they were making their full assault now.

  One last load of wood, then Gary cleared a spot for the tent, near a stand of birch, behind the cabin. Can you help me put up the tent? he called out, as if she weren’t standing nearby on a windless day. It was the excitement. He wanted to do everything at once.

  So she helped, a big tent, enough room for the two of them and all their clothing and gear.

  What about the food? Irene asked. How do we keep it away from bears?

  No bears out here, Gary said. It’s an island.

  Bears do swim.

  Yeah, but not just to come visiting. It’s a long way from shore.

  Only a couple hundred yards on the close side, right?

  Something like that. Let’s just put the food in the tent for now. Help me with the cooler. So they put their food next to their sleeping bags.

  Now the other tent, Gary said. They looked for level ground, feeling their
way through the undergrowth. Large patches of club moss, spongy and soft, lady ferns, shield ferns, an area with more shade.

  Seems okay here, Gary said. We’re not sleeping in this one, so it can be a little bumpy.

  Irene helped unroll another tarp and tent, helped drive in stakes and spread the rain fly. If only the cabin could be this easy. She and Gary loaded tools and supplies, everything except the wood, into the tent, then stood back and looked at their little camp.

  Not bad, Gary said. Outhouse is next.

  Irene looked at the lake, so calm today, the mountains reflected. Peaks clear, upper snow patches outlining ridges, the edge of the Harding Icefield. Sunny and warm, maybe seventy degrees. She’d taken her jacket off. The kind of day when all could seem possible.

  It shouldn’t be far from the cabin, Gary was saying. We’ll need to use it through the winter.

  Let’s just build it on the back of the cabin, Irene said. So we don’t have to go outside at all.

  Irene.

  What? Every time I have to use the bathroom, I have to wade through a bunch of snow?

  The snow’s not too bad here.

  Is it the kind that’s not cold and wet?

  Irene.

  Irene yourself. Build the damn thing on the back of the cabin, just sticking out from the wall. Put a door on it.

  We’ll smell the outhouse all winter.

  Then so be it. If we’re going to live like shit, we should smell shit.

  Gary turned away from her. The kind of moment he was looking for, she knew. Enough fights about this ridiculous cabin and he could justify leaving. Put her in an impossible situation and then say the marriage was impossible. The beauty of it was that he could lie so well to himself he’d still think he was the good guy. He’d actually believe he’d done everything he could.

  Look, she said. You can build it ten feet away, with a short hallway connecting. Put a door on both ends. Maybe that way we won’t smell it.

  Gary considered. He walked along the back wall of the cabin, turned in place several times, pacing things out. Okay, he said finally. I can do something like that. But we have to move the supply tent to make room.

  Crisis averted, and if it was this easy, she wondered whether she could refuse the entire cabin right now. Just say no to the whole idea and go home. But she knew that was not possible. Because the cabin was not about the cabin.

  They pulled all the tools and supplies out of the second tent, found another spot farther back, put it up and loaded again. The afternoon passing, Gary looking at his watch.

  It’s getting late, he said, and we haven’t even started the outhouse yet. Punishment, indirect. Letting her know the consequences.

  Yeah, Irene said. Bummer it’s not June.

  Gary tight-lipped after that. Grabbing the shovel to chop a pathway through the growth, a narrow aisle to a larger square for the outhouse, about four feet by four feet. His T-shirt darkening from sweat.

  Irene finally pulled the cooler from their tent, sat down on it to watch him work. Digging to China, tearing a hole in the earth to let her know how he felt. No different from a little boy. She should grab him and make him take the tit, rock him until he fell asleep.

  It aggravated Irene that she’d had to take care of this man for thirty years. The weight of his complaints and impatience, his failures, and in return, his vacancy. Why had any of that seemed okay?

  Irene couldn’t watch him anymore. She got up and walked into the trees. All shaded here, cooler, the trunks close, every tree with rakes of slim dead branches, thin curved fingers, leftovers, perhaps, from when they were much younger. Snapping against her as she broke through, all the green and new growth much higher. Spruce and birch, trees you could tire of after enough years in Alaska. The occasional cottonwood with its rougher bark, a few aspen.

  Narrow pathways like alleys opened up, and she followed these, game trails. Small patches of moss and fern, the forest quiet. Irene a hunter or hunted, either way the same feeling, the same awareness of the forest, the same waiting for sound or movement, the same awareness of breath. It was time to hunt again, to bring her bow out here. But she was accompanied now by this new thing, this new betrayal of body, something she couldn’t fight, couldn’t track, could never see because it didn’t exist. Irene climbed higher, hitting plateaus and slopes all hidden by forest, until she had reached a hump with no higher to go, still surrounded, still no view, a panorama that was there but blocked on every side.

  Sunday, and Rhoda and Jim both had the day off, so they slept late, had sex, napped again, then just lay there. Jim with his eyes closed, Rhoda with her head propped on his chest, looking at the view. Slow rollers coming up the inlet, a clear and sunny day. Slim black spruce in the flats before the beach, standing individually. They’d always seemed like people to Rhoda, vagabonds heading toward the sea, each walking alone. She could imagine a lower branch as a hand, holding a small suitcase.

  The trees look like people, Rhoda said.

  What? Jim asked.

  The spruce out there, like people, a little bit shaggy, like the Whos of Whoville.

  Huh, he said.

  You’re not looking.

  Okay, he said, and propped his head with a pillow. Rhoda readjusted lower on his chest. The trees out there? he asked.

  Yeah.

  I guess I can see that. Small ones for the kids, bigger ones for the adults. They’re about the right height.

  And where are they going? she asked.

  Sounds like a loaded question.

  Hm, Rhoda said. It wasn’t. I wasn’t thinking of that.

  Sorry, he said.

  My parents are so weird. Promise me we’ll never be like them.

  That’s easy.

  Rhoda laughed. They are freaks.

  You’re the one who said it.

  When do I meet your parents?

  I don’t know, Jim said. They moved to Arizona.

  That’s all you ever say about them.

  Well I don’t go down there, and they don’t come up here.

  That’s sad.

  No it’s not. It’s an accidental relationship, unchosen. I never would have chosen them as friends. I don’t even like them.

  That’s really sad.

  Not for me. I don’t care at all.

  Hm, Rhoda said. She didn’t like this side of Jim, cold and unconnected to anyone. It didn’t sound true, and it certainly didn’t fit her vision of having kids and cozy family scenes. Accidental and unchosen.

  Am I accidental and unchosen? she finally asked.

  Rhoda, he said.

  Really. Is it just because I’m here, and available?

  No. I love you. You know that.

  Rhoda propped up and looked into his eyes. Really? she asked. Can you promise me that?

  Absolutely, he said, and pulled her close for a kiss.

  Okay, she said, and settled back against his chest. Some of his chest hair was turning gray. A change just in the last year since they’d been living together. And his stomach going soft, a little mound. A thickening at his sides. Eleven years older than her.

  I’m worried about my mom, she said.

  Yeah. I thought Romano would find something.

  I don’t know what’s wrong with her. I don’t know how to help her.

  Hm.

  Rhoda could tell Jim wasn’t really interested in this subject. Too messy and complicated. You don’t want to talk about this.

  I’m fine, Jim said. Really.

  I try to understand her, and I just can’t. Maybe it’s retirement. I know she misses her work and feels pointless now. And they don’t have as much money as they wanted for retirement, so she probably worries about that. But there’s something else, too, something more important going on. It’s like she’s making her own secret deals with the gods.

  Whoa, Jim said. That sounds a little grand.

  I’m serious, though. She’s decided the world is against her, and it’s like she’s getting ready for battle. Sh
e’s all paranoid. And then I try to say something, and she knows I’m not in there with the gods. I don’t get to decide anything. I only get to watch it all happen, so I don’t matter.

  That’s not true. You matter to her.

  I used to. But I don’t now. I think the pain in her head is from getting ready to go to war. And I know the war is with my dad, but I can’t figure out what it’s really about, because I’m not in it.

  Rhoda, Jim said. I’m sorry, but I think you’re going off the deep end yourself. You’re making too much of this. She has some kind of pain, probably from being a stress case. Or she needs to get used to retirement, like you said. But that’s it. She’ll get over it.

  I don’t think she will. And Rhoda realized this was true. She felt very sad suddenly. She didn’t believe her mother would recover from this. Because whatever was wrong was pulling in every part of her life. That was the key. It was reaching across time. I don’t think she’ll get better, she said to Jim. I really don’t.

  Jim held her then, both arms wrapped around her, and she closed her eyes and wanted to find some way to stop everything, but it was all darkness, a void, nothing to grab onto. When are you going to marry me, Jim? she asked. I need something solid. She couldn’t believe she had just said that, said those words aloud. But she had.

  There was a long and ugly pause, and she could feel his breath and heart quickening. I love you, Rhoda, he finally said.

  Not enough. When are you going to marry me?

  The wash table was a cold aluminum trough, a wading pool of blood and saltwater. Carl’s hands aching from the cold, fingers sore. The salmon came to him gutted and beheaded, but he needed to grip thin, clear membranes with his triple-gloved hands and pull them out, then flick onto the floor. Four or five tries for every membrane before he could find it, and sometimes it wasn’t there.

  The chu-chunk of the beheading machine a steady rhythm, every few seconds, another fish coming his way, and he was starting to panic. Too many fish, a backup at the wash table. Metallica blasting on speakers above.

  Three others were working the same job, all faster, but the fish were piling up, filling the blood bath. The woman across from him, another college student, wasn’t actually grabbing any membranes, so that was stressing him out. She’d give the fish a light caress on each side, to wash off the blood, then give a peek inside the gutted area of the body, where the membranes were hiding, and throw the fish onto a white plastic chute in the middle of the table, sending it on to the inspectors. Each time she threw, she managed to splat the tail against the chute, flicking slime and water onto Carl’s face. She had it perfected. And she’d throw three fish for every one of his.